</end lolspeech>

Why I am glad Bill Clinton was our president: Reason Number One

He was an insightful person who displayed a lot of foresight. He understood the problems that were occurring with Al Quaida, and took action to stop them from shipping explosives into the United States.

Furthermore, he looked towards their base of operations, Afghanistan, and asked General Clark to make a plan to crush the country.

There's a reason why it didn't take the Bush Admin long to go to war with Afghanistan -- we already had a playbook in place, and ready to roll. And it was a good playbook, a lesson in blitzkrieg and unstoppable force.

I'm not sure it would have been possible for Clinton and Clark to have put together a good nation-building primer before 9/11. And it would perhaps not have been wise.

For winning the wars that needed to be fought, I honor Bill Clinton.

I'm sorry, this ain't no pissing contest, and even if it was, I don't got a dick, so it is irrelevant. I'm going to post this, and then I'm going to walk away. I'm sure Lakrosse made some wonderful points, that I probably agree with. I haven't read them yet, and may not, at all.

Right now, I want to talk about what the scholarship has to say about why Bill Clinton's economy was fundamentally strong (note: looking at my last diary, you might be asking -- wtf? Just because I can't trust the gov't statistics doesn't mean that there aren't statistics out there, and it doesn't mean that scholarly research can't be done with the CORRECT statistics).

So, what am I trying to say here? TEN YEARS AGO, the idea was that reducing the federal deficit would save the economy. That was conventional economic wisdom, you know by the eggheads, not just the cocktail parties.

That isn't what they're giving credit for, today. Today, the credit for Clinton's boom (which, it should be noted, is widely accepted to have been artificially extended by  the dotcom bubble, but was in fact a true boom) goes to infrastructure investments.

O-man has a lot of Chicago School economics people on his team. Let's just say that there's a reason he's not running on the balanced budget, and that reason is that the science doesn't show that balanced budgets save the economy. Come to think of it, none of the Democratic candidates were running on balanced budgets.

End of Rant. I go read rest of rec list now.

There is currently an abomination of a diary up on the rec list. Not so much because it quotes gov't sources, as the fact that the gov't sources themselves cannot be trusted.  That is a travesty that has been ongoing since the Reagan administration.

Do I put the blame squarely on Bill? Yes, to the extent he deserves it. Together with Greenspan, he came up with unique and innovative ways to distort and mislead with gov't statistics.

This is not to say that the Republicans did not do the same thing -- they did. In fact, GWB's changes were so egregious that they were actually denied.

Folks who know me around here know that I've got no big beef with the Big Dog, but I do like the smell of honesty. And that's why I'm here, all frizzed up and ready to talk. So, join me.

My heart and head both thank the Hillary Democrats who spent the last few months telling pollsters that they wouldn't vote for Obama -- only to switch directly after the primary!

HA ha, John McCain, jokes on you.

Yes, feel free to spend your money trying to woo pro-choice women. Won't work.

Maybe some other Obama supporter wants to care about people lying to the pollsters, but not me!  All's fair in the primary, and it sure made the GOP sweat!

Happily yours,

RisingTide

It is no longer an opinion, but historical consensus, that George Bush the second is the worst president in US History. I'm going to look at the best thing he's done, and will leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine the best of what other presidents have done.

Put simply, it is the Do Not Call List -- it saves the everyday population many unneeded telephone calls. Also, it saves corporations from calling people who really, really don't want to be called.  It's ingenious, and something truly innovative.

So Kudos to Dubya, he did ONE thing right!

[challenge diary. more details in comments]

So, here I was, as I generally am after work, sitting down and waiting for a bus. A lady walks over and stands next to me, so I glance up. And I just had to comment, because she had the most beautiful eyepatch! (she said she makes 'em, and no wonder!).

So we get to talking, and it turns out she's actually from Germany (and is old enough to have been on the playground during WWII). So, she's not exactly a young chicken.

But the talk turns to politics (what, we're going to talk about sports?!), and she starts saying how "McCain is just too old!" -- and I laugh and agree with her. But, it's more poignant coming from someone her age, someone not so many years younger than he is.

And then the talk turns to who Obama will chose for his running mate -- she asks me if he'll choose Hillary, and I say probably not. Then I start talking about the good chances I've heard for women governors to be running as VEEP. And she starts to say something about how Barack should choose a white woman, that if he chooses a black woman, some folks will think the blacks are trying to take over or something!

I just smile (relieved that she doesn't think that a black man on the top of the ticket means that they're trying to take over), and say, a little sadly, "no worries about that, there aren't many black women in the high ranks of politics. But that'll soon change..." [thinking of Miss Donna here]

I found the whole thing refreshing, particularly after all the talk that older people think more about race (which she was), and sometimes tend to be more bigoted.

This is intended as a lighthearted break, and a little laugh at the ludicrosity of the primary wars (I posted part of this earlier on kos). If you aren't prepared to have a little fun, save this and read it later. No whining in the comments, unless it's clever enough for mojo.

Seriously, people, these are yard sign wars. You should not have two signs, for different candidates running against each other.  Your family should argue in private, decide on one or the other, and put up one sign. Putting up two signs does nothing, and wastes signs that more decisive households could use.

Yes, we know, they're both wonderful candidates. But that's not what yard sign wars are all about. They were supposed to be about name recognition, but anyone who doesn't know whose running by now is ignorant (if you can't pronounce the name, that's justifiable. but you should know something, by now).  So the next thing is an implied endorsement. I believe in this person, and I ain't afraid to let my neighbors know. You like me, think I'm a reasonable person, give my guy a look, yes?

Well, I'm just going to write this one up quick,as it's mostly a reaction to both Dr. Brin and DHinMI.

What does Hillary want, to get out of the race?

"In addition to seeking Obama's help in raising money to pay off some $20 million-plus in debts, Clinton is known to want Obama to assist black officials who endorsed her and who are now taking constituent heat, including, in some cases, primary challenges from pro-Obama politicians."

Wow. That... just blew me away. The lady has class. Is she asking for patronage, for seats in the new government? No, she's asking for a bit of aid to precisely the people Obama could help the most. Not herself, she seems to be saying sink or swim she can do it. But some of her fervent followers, she's asking Obama to help them. Which should be no problem -- a lot of her AA followers are solid liberal Democrats.

That lady got class. And even in the most dire situations, she continues to assert what her campaign has increasingly shown itself bereft of.

Hats off to Hillary!